Erotic Adventures in Candyland
by thursdaysisters
Summary: Where J2 and JDM are swashbuckling werewolves made of cake and have lots of porny fairy tale sex. Inspired by quickreaver's art HERE:
1. Erotic Adventures in Candyland

Down in the Ovens, Morgan lounged in his slut garden, oiled maidens heaped up behind him in various sleeping positions. Torchlight flickered over his smoldering eyes. He'd gone through five girls that morning but never managed to finish, always with one eye for the new lieutenant standing guard outside his door.

Slaves bowed their heads as he strode into the war room, a flame-eyed shadow with the shoulders of a bull edged in sugar and cinder and blood. Jensen saluted crisply.

"You wanted to see me sir?"

Closing the door, Morgan withdrew a small stone box and placed it on the table. "Bring me the prince's heart, and your debt will be paid," he said, "You have until midnight."

"Yes, sir."

Morgan walked a slow circle around Jensen, taking the measure of him. In the glare of the lanterns his armor shone like black glass. "Take caution and avoid closed quarters, for he is your match in single combat. He will try to draw you in."

"Yes sir."

He reached for the box, but Morgan's hand closed around his wrist, hot breath burning the back of Jensen's neck. Jensen froze. "Even hostages may use my name in the company of men. You are always welcome here," he said, fingers pressing suggestively, "You have been a good and faithful servant. And when I take the throne..."

Jensen swallowed hard. It had been rumored that Morgan never cared for girls, that he only kept his brides so that, when he felt he really deserved it, he could savor a young soldier. He pictured himself in the dungeons, hands bound, riding Morgan while the old man pumped his pretty pink cock until he shot hot cream all over his breastplate.

The other soldiers parted ways for Jensen, leering in anticipation of his punishment should he fail. Passing the slut garden on his way out, a black-eyed slut peered up at him, her lips swollen. Morgan was _champurrado_, an unholy mix of dark chocolate and chipotle and cinnamon. He burned in your mouth.

* * *

Torchlight ascended the castle steps as the royal nurse paced back and forth, non-parriels glittering in her meringue hair. She twisted her fingers. "He smells you. He's coming for you."

"I saw him running the other way, I've had scouts sent to trail him." said Jared. He sagged between two coachmen, blood oozing from his right thigh and eyes bright from the hunt.

"Did you see his face?"

"It was too dark," he said, putting weight on his bad leg and grimacing, "But the night is young, he may catch up to us before long.

The bells tolled midnight. She knelt to examine his wound. "You won't last til morning."

At eighteen the prince looked nearly a man, white chocolate armor molded to his muscled body and cheeks like the first peach of summer. A coughing fit overtook him, and the coachmen recoiled as thick black smoke issued from his lips.

"Oh my poor sweet boy," she said, taking his face in her hands, "And tomorrow is Coronation Day."

Jared gently pushed her aside and stumbled to the bookshelf. "There's an antidote," he said, opening _Alpha Thaumaturgy_ to the table of contents and then dropping it, "It's in here somewhere."

The nurse withdrew his sword from his scabbard. He did not look up from his books. "My lady?"

"There is no cure. In a few hours his mark will have burned you from the inside out, unless you do the right thing. Unless you find him and kill him," she said, stepping forward until the point of the blade was under his chin, "And then throw yourself from the highest tower."

He grasped her slender wrist in his scarred brown hand, crushing her bones until the sword clattered to the floor. It was only a moment, but in his anger she saw herself reflected in black eyes before he released his grip and turned away. A breeze lifted the pages of the discarded book, and stopped at a wood carving that made her skin prickle.

Few knew what the wolves of the Ovens looked like. Every portrait was only part of the beast, seen through the crack of a door or from under a bed. To see the whole was to invite madness.

"My Prince, please don't attempt this."

"There's a passage connecting the stable to the city gate. Take horses and get the others to safety."

"But what if we catch sight of him?!" she said, suddenly dropping her voice at the howls echoing nearby, "Wicked, wicked boy! You've cursed us all!"

He touched her cheek, and tugged at a pink ribbon until her bun came apart and tumbled in thick curtains on either side of her face. "Prepare my surcoat for tomorrow. I must be presentable for the queen."

* * *

At the end of a lonely passage stood two hooded servants with a black candle in their upraised hands. A door stood open. Beside the lintel someone had drawn a pair of childish graffiti figures, one with a fork, the other on a torture rack. The air smelled of gingerbread and men working long hours with no ventilation.

Jensen struggled against his chains. Blacksmiths worked nearby, the hammering almost drowning out the screams of the other prisoners. Almost. "I couldn't do it."

Morgan dropped a newly forged sword into the water and watched it sizzle. Sweat rolled down his back and disappeared inside his leather apron, but he paid it no mind. He liked it hot. "I know."

Jensen formed a T on the rack, naked, ankles locked together at one end and his arms stretched between two posts. Jared's blood was dry on his chin. "I don't know what came over me, I was right on top of him in the forest and then..."

"It doesn't matter. You have his scent now, you will return to the castle."

"But he'll have every guard at their post, dozens...hundreds...how will I ever...?"

Morgan pulled off his gloves and set them beside a tray of knives still wet from the last prisoner. He passed one over a candle-flame to sterilize it. "I had hoped to defeat him with brute force, but the coronation draws near and I must now employ magic."

"What kind of magic?"

Morgan examined the knife. "A tracker spell."

Jensen twisted away. The bloodhounds of the Ovens never lost their quarry, but they were lurking horrors, all nose and mouth and devoid of human emotion. "Please not that..."

"It would be temporary. Until the next sunrise none would be able to look upon you, to be within armslength of you for fear of seeing your true face," said Morgan, slicing a red line across his palm, "None would stand in your path."

"I can't."

"You will. And once the Prince is gone, his armies will seek out a new power, and together," he said, fingers tracing Jensen's cock until it lept under his hand, "We will plunder the kingdom."

Jensen looked down and then up again, eyes burning with intent. "I thought you wanted to rule."

"What is one castle? The Prince has all the wealth at his disposal. With me in command and you as my general we can buy more soldiers and bring the neighboring lords under our wing until we have carved out an empire. We will make history. They will name cities after us," said Morgan, running the length of the boy in a hard, wet squeeze, "They will name stars after us."

Jensen fought against his touch, teeth sinking into his plush lower lip. "Let us away from here. I've failed you once, I could do it again. If the Prince should pierce my heart and lick the blood off his sword I want it to taste like you," he said, "I want him to know who claimed me."

His young body gleamed with sweat, cockhead rubbing along Morgan's belly, up and down until it got under his tunic and met with warm skin. Morgan leaned in, his voice low and dangerous.

"You won't fail me a second time," he said, enjoying the little noises Jensen made as he neared the end, need mingled with fear, "And I like you just the way you are."

Two thick ropes of vanilla icing shot across his chest, and Morgan licked a slow line up his body before sealing his mouth over Jensen's panting lips. Virgins always tasted best, and though Morgan longed to part Jensen's legs and pump his tight teenage ass full of hot buttercream and then suck it out of his cherry, the spices would ruin him. Better to leave the boy in tact.

Morgan stood straight and muttered ancient words, his head limned in purple light for a moment. The wound in his hand glowed. Jensen gasped for air, eyes sliding sideways as Morgan removed his apron to reveal his own aching cock, dark and veined with chocolate.

"You can have me. I'm not promised to anyone."

"Keep it," said Morgan, pumping his cock in his fist, "I'm up to here with promises."

He came on a sigh, so much that it slipped through the cracks of his fingers, and he spread it and the blood across Jensen's face like a warm mask. "It will hide your scent," he said, wiping his hand on his apron, "You won't be yourself while the spell is active, but remember that time is critical. Once I summon you, and you will come when I summon you, we will use the Prince's heart for the final strike in the battlefield."

Jensen began to sweat as his body transformed. A crucible poured forth green smoke in the corner, waiting for the final alchemical ingrediant. "What happens when the sun rises?"

Morgan eyed him possessively, like a ransom he'd yet to take, and turned away. "An even greater magic," he said, "Now go and hunt. War is a hungry business."

* * *

The castle was protected by a high blackberry wall, and three kitchen girls huddled in the dark, listening to Jensen slice through venomous thorns and the serpents who nested there. The oldest girl stood up.

"Where are you going Honey?" asked the youngest girl. All girls are 'honey', as all soldiers are 'brother'.

She put a finger to her lips. "It's too dark, there's a box of matches on the shelf."

"He'll see us!"

"We'll be lost in the woods without light," she hissed back, "I'll be right back."

The remaining two cuddled together against flour sacks, counting their breaths as Jensen's sword went silent outside. When they got to a hundred, the middle girl stood up. "I think he's gone."

"Oh please don't leave me," said the youngest, clutching her arm, "He'll eat me up!"

"Maybe the matches are wet and she can't light them. Stay here."

The youngest balled her fist in her mouth, too afraid to call after her. In a high window a gummi serpent wrapped itself around the iron bars to taste the air with little tongue flicks, and steeling herself she began to crawl on hands and knees toward the door. Something moved past her.

"Honey?" she whispered, "Are you still here?"

Rhythmic breathing sounded from the corner, quick intakes followed by a pause and then exhaling again, as one drawing oars in a storm. Her hand fell on the box of matches, and she scratched one to life.

"Honey?"

The room was quiet again, the girl kneeling a puddle of light with one side of her face cast in shadow. The door creaked on its' hinges. Soon the flame burned down to her fingertips, and she was plunged once more into darkness. She took out another match.

"I think he's gone." she said, when a hand closed around her ankle.

Her mouth opened like a red fire bucket as she was dragged screaming into his iron embrace, the match rolling across the floor. In the light her face shown thin and sharp as a mouse, and when she reached for the door someone else beat her to it, the lock turning with a decisive click. Then the flame guttered and the darkness swallowed her feet-first.

The serpent waited, and, out of respect from one predator to another, it slithered away.

* * *

The door closed, and when the nurses's footsteps died Jared touch the thin gold chain around his neck that he wore under his armor and kept on the pillow beside him at night. Another casualty in Morgan's war.

Soldiers gathered outside, awaiting his orders. A portrait hung on the wall, and he carefully removed it and pulled the chain over his head and opened the cameo locket at the end of it. He studied the face inside it for a long time and squeezed it shut between his palms. You can only mourn the dead for so long.

"Look away my love," he said, hanging the locket on the nail and then replacing the portrait, "Just for tonight."

* * *

The banquet hall was carpeted with bodies as he fucked his way from one end of the castle to the other, thick cock dripping girl honey with a knot at the end like a softball. A cool breeze brought Jared's scent, and he pulled out of the kitchen girl and did not answer when she asked his name. He had no name. He had no words. There was only the hunger.

Up a rung ladder and through a grate he emerged, sword drawn and peppermint dotted along his hard candy platemail. Jensen turned his head back and forth, listening. Horses whinnied far away, and he waited until they passed before moving again.

It was only when he ventured outside to the cherry orchard that he found soldiers along a parapet with Jared at the far end, framed against the stars in white chocolate armor and helm that made him glow in the moonlight.

Jared flexed his fingers over the swordhilt. The newcomer's scent reeked of magic. "Is that you Morgan?"

Jensen did not recognize that name in the red mist of bloodlust. The soldiers held their swords close to their bodies to hide the glare of steel, and thin curtains billowed from a stone archway nearby, the only light remaining in the castle.

"Up with you!" said Jared, swords bristling at his command, "And bring him to me alive!"

Jensen licked honey from his fingers and unsheathed his sword, playfully tossing it from hand to hand as the first soldier bounded over the rail. As outnumbered as he was, the magic lent him unnatural strength, and he lifted the man by the ankle, whipped him in a circle, and flung him into the others like a stone at the end of a sock.

The second man was braver, but the war-cry died on his lips once he got close enough to see Jensen's face, and he ran in the opposite direction. A search party found him three days later, mad and dribbling down the front of his shirt beneath a hollow tree.

Swords clashed in the dark, and slowly Jensen made his way upwards, stepping over moaning bodies with the Prince remaining by the archway like something carved in stone.

One man rebounded and Jensen's sword struck a cherry tree, wood chips spraying the side of his face as the soldiers wheeled away to form a defensive stance, a little bit warier, a little bit closer to the stone archway. What was it someone had said about close quarters?

Then he was surrounded, metal hemming him in on all sides and yet never managing to land a killing blow, until the remaining men lay in a circle at his feet and he stood triumphant, chest heaving and bloody up to the elbows.

Jared set one foot behind him, an thought of the cameo locket hanging in his room when Jensen lunged at him, screaming, black-eyed. Strike, parry, counter-strike, ignoring the deathwish he'd harbored these many months, until Jared did a three-hundred and sixty degree turn that knocked the sword out of Jensen's hand. The hilt went one way. The blade, or the top two-thirds of it at least, went the other.

Jared breathed out slowly. He would not die today. "Surrender."

The curtains wafted behind him. Jensen sneered, and with a lusty cry pushed Jared through the stone archway and across the room until his back was to the wall, and sank his teeth into the Prince's arm right as he felt the bite of steel against his throat. Jared's helm bounced across the floor and stopped beneath the portrait.

Jensen held his breath. A pink ribbon had been tied around Jared's eyes to act as a blindfold, but nonetheless the rest of him, the powerful jaw, the feline curve of his cheek, provoked memories.

Cherry blossoms floated over the strange tableau, the two men braced against one another in assured mutual destruction. The discarded book of magic flipped open in the breeze, where a beauty arched beneath two clawed hands and slanted glowing eyes.

The venom had nearly reached Jared's heart, and it was only this that stayed his hand. Blood ran down the gutter of Jared's sword, and his lip curled as he formed the words:

"Claim. Me."

Jensen growled. A thin line of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, teeth bared over Jared's left arm, the Prince's sword pressed into the soft flesh beneath his jaw. He was all hound. All he heard was "kill".

Jared coughed once, and a thin wisp of black smoke escaped. His brow was beaded with sweat, clusters of thick wet locks plastered to the side of his head.

"I'll die if you don't."

The more Jensen listened, the more familiar the voice became, his swollen cock bobbing like a compass needle. A reward awaited him back in the Ovens, though with Jared this close it was hard to recall exactly what that was. His bite slackened and Jared inhaled in shaky relief.

"I heard you with the serving girls," he said, removing his arm and letting his hand fall on Jensen's hip, "You're still...hungry, aren't you."

It wasn't a question. Jared reached across his shoulder to twist a leather cord until his breast plate came free and placed Jensen's hand on it.

"You know I could smell you from miles away."

His fingers curled around the armor and wrenched it away, where scratch marks from their earlier tussle showed a livid red across Jared's muscled chest. They couldn't possibly make him ugly.

"It burns inside. I can feel it growing," he said, touching the bitemark on his thigh, "And according to the lore, only the wolf who bit me can extinguish it."

He dragged his nails from the bite, over his hip and up the hard chiseled lines of his belly, watching Jensen's mouth water at the invitation.

"Will you aid me?"

Jensen wiped fresh blood off his mouth with the back of his hand and stared at it. Nothing smelled like that down in the Ovens, it was like spring. Like home. He tongued the red stain, and Jared fell slowly to his knees, face tilted upward as Jensen peered down through long drooping eyelashes.

"If you should kill me tomorrow, if I should die a king without a kingdom, let it at least be on the battlefield with a sword in my hand and a horse between my legs. Only this I ask," he said, lips parted, "Only let me live."

Jared had imagined a different kind of wedding night in his mind, recalling a summer's afternoon where his sweetheart had woven flowers in his hair. _"Wait, let me gather the fairest one."_ he'd said, bending down to gather a blossom in his mouth and press it to Jared's cheek in a chaste kiss.

Jared had made some joke, and when they laughed the wind carried the flower over the trees and into the river. Jared had mourned its' loss, but his sweetheart took his hand and said, _"You still have the kiss. No one can take that away."_

Back in the castle, girl honey glistened on Jensen's cock, with a single bead of buttercream at the tip as Jared pressed his tongue to taste it. Instantly he cooled, peppermint and vanilla dissolving in his mouth as he drew on his cock and moaned in relief until his arms thoughtlessly wound around Jensen's hips and the cockhead hit Jared's backteeth. Jensen hissed in pain, but Jared kept him close.

"No. Let me get you ready for me."

Jensen trembled. He had been saving himself for someone back in the Ovens but...his fingers laced through Jared's hair, watching the Prince's cheeks hollow as he took the length of him, plump pink lips sealed around his thick dripping cock, thirsty for any little drop he could spare.

Jared idly wondered if all men tasted alike. He'd offered himself several times, climbing into his lover's bed or pulling him behind the stables, but he'd always been rebuffed. War was no time for hasty marriages. He pulled off of Jensen, sucked clean of previous conquests. "I want more."

He lay back on the bed, chocolate velvet spread across blonde brownie cushions. Jensen was electric with hunger, carelessly picking the remainder of Jared's armor apart, prying the candy shell off the golden, ripe body within with only a loincloth of strawberry leather covering the Prince's ample cock. Jared shivered, but removed neither his blindfold nor his sword. He would need both.

Jensen stood frozen. The simple order echoed in his head, kill, kill, kill, and it all went soft around the edges as he held his cock in both hands like a misery between his legs. Loneliness won out.

His nose hovered over the sheets, following the scent that has hung in the air like expensive perfume since he'd first approached the castle. Teeth closing around the loincloth, the leather tore in a long strip like taffy before he snapped it up in one bite.

Jared shaped his hand to the back of Jensen's head and urged him on, nose pressed to Jared's ass with both hands flat against the inside of his thighs. He longed to remove the blindfold, sure that the wood carvings must be exaggerated, as Jensen sucked at him greedily.

"Quickly, villain!" said Jared, sword held fast, "My patience is wearing!"

Jared was not completely innocent, serving girls were ever eager to trade favors, but he had yet to have his first true manly orgasm, and when Jensen dipped his tongue inside it was the maiden nectar of the honeysuckle vine.

The sun would be up soon. Jared clutched the headboard as he soaked the mattress with his arousal, fearing he would shame the memory of the beloved dead, but told himself it didn't matter. His heart was spoken for, even if his body was to be cheapened in the name of war.

He yanked Jensen upward by his hair and wound his legs around him, thighs hardened by years of riding. "You knew it would come to this," he said, taking Jensen's hand, "When you fucked all those girls. You knew they would never be enough."

He took one of his Jensen's fingers in his mouth and sucked it wet. "Were you thinking about this when you rolled on top of me in the forest?" asked Jared, leading Jensen's finger down, "Would you have taken me then?"

Jensen flushed. The sword was inches away, if he could knock it out of Jared's hand...

"You're not like the rest. They are dishwater, you are champagne. And an uncommon vintage," he whispered, sliding Jensen's finger inside of him, "Deserves an uncommon vessel."

Their cocks slid together and Jared opened his throat to accept Jensen's kisses. He ran his thumb over Jensen's slit as buttercream leaked out. "Go ahead. You're close," he said, placing it against his ass, "It would be a shame to waste it."

Jensen spread him wide and looked down, watching Jared stretch around his cockhead. Jared sucked in a breath, one hand cupping Jensen's ass and the other clutching his sword, and pushed him in until their hips touched and he bit back a dead man's name.

But even that initial contact soothed Jared, the peppermint cooling him, and he dug his fingers into Jensen's flesh. He buried his sword in the bed. "Get on with it and spare me your tender mercies, soldier!"

Military habit kicked in. "Yes sir."

Jared was not prepared for the man's strength, and arched against the cushions as Jensen hammered into him with powerful, rhythmic strokes, hips snapping, muscles ridged along his forearms as he fought to keep Jared in place.

The headboard slapped against the wall. Jared pressed the side of his face into the pillow, wishing this honor had gone to someone else as the knot bulged inside of him, aching to plunge deeper, to fill the hidden pockets of him with thick cream until it extended to his very roots.

"Dont...stop..."

Jared held onto his sword, weak from the venom but prepared to kill the moment his enemy finished.

"Hurry," he croaked, looking toward the window, "My doom is upon me."

The sky pinked in the east, and some memory lurched in Jensen's brain. He had been saving himself though not for Morgan, for some worthy creature in which to spill his love until they mingled so that one man tasted like the other. He remembered flowers by the river...

"My king, my king..." he whispered between kisses, pounding dutifully into him, some instinct driving him to perform his best so that no other could outmatch him for his lover's affection, the sword and the blood and his duty forgotten.

Jared took his voice for a fever dream, wishful thinking on the edge of death. "Say that again you bastard, you murderer," said Jared, kissing back, sucking on Jensen's mouth, "Whom do you serve?"

"I serve you my lord, only you..." said Jensen, lost in Jared's body as he pumped harder. Jared had never begged for anything in his life but he begged now, and Jensen clutched his cock in his sweaty hand and steered him through the pain and with a howl that cleared two octaves the Prince was ushered into manhood.

The locket bounced against the wall once and swung off the nail, skittering across the floor. Bars of sunlight crept through the curtains, and Jensen recognized the picture within. One final thrust, a second that stretched into several sunlit days, and his eyes flashed from black to green as he lost his innocence.

_Look at me._ he thought.

Jared lay with his arms flung across his face, inconsolable with grief. Jensen tenderly pried them apart. He remembered everything.

He pulled at the blindfold with thumb and forefinger, and it slid away easily, Jared's eyes shut tight. The last of Morgan's magic evaporated, and Jensen held Jared's face in his hands.

"Look at me."

Magicians were known to mimic dead men's voices. Convinced it was a trick, he lashed out blindly with his sword. "Vile dog!"

Jensen lept off the bed, hands raised. "It's not what you think."

The sword sang, inches from Jensen's chest. "Come closer so I may bury you tonight!"

A voice rang in Jensen's ears to return at once, and he backed toward through the stone archway, Morgan's magic pulling on him like an invisible leash. "Open your eyes!"

Jared was on him, sword raised, when Jensen suddenly stepped on empty air. Only then did Jared look, his voice cracking.

"...you're alive."

He reached out to touch him, too late. And together they tumbled from out the tower, the pink ribbon fluttering long, long after to the unforgiving stones below.

* * *

Jared stared at his reflection the next day, white robes gathered up in cloth-of-gold sashes, as the nurse stood on a chair to set the cherry wreath on his head. His hair hid most of the bruises.

She put both hands on his shoulders. "You look every inch a king."

Her eyes flicked to the golden chain on the side table. "Do you have...everything you need?"

He removed her hands. Jensen had disappeared after the fall, and none of his men dared invade the Ovens in search of him. "Yes, thank you, that is all."

A knock at the door, and men in ceremonial black entered. "The queen has been announced."

Jared nodded, and smoothed his robes needlessly. They had been made expressly for this day, and he itched for the solid weight of plate mail. Later.

"Let's not keep her waiting."

* * *

**LONDON: 1953**

The Queen turned a fugitive smile for the gentry that she did not feel, and let her valet lead her down the stairs to dinner.

"Many happy congratulations, your grace," said the seventeenth Earl of...somewhere, "And may I express my condolences for your father, he was a credit to his race."

"You are too kind." she said, as a chair was pushed beneath her for the first course. She tapped a spoon against her water glass. "As I have many onerous matters of state ahead of me, I have requested to begin with the dessert plate. The war was difficult enough with sugar rationing, and I aim to correct that, starting tonight."

A white cake layered in cherry blossom petals and candied peaches was presented to her, and a liveried footman cut the first slice for her to sample. It showed golden within, and the scent reminded her of happier days when Father would walk her through the royal gardens. She took a dainty bite.

"My queen," said the footman, bending to whisper confidentially, "Whatever is the matter?"

She covered her mouth. Everyone leaned in, tense with worry for their dear lady. Soft, slow tears fell down her cheek.

"It tastes like heartache."

* * *

Morgan locked Jensen's collar to the wall and rose to leave. The chains were so heavy that four men would have had to carry Jensen out of the dungeon.

"Please, the battle is upon us, let me fight and atone for my crime!"

"I've told the men that you died in the field. It's the least I could do," he said, bolting the door, "They would never tolerate a traitor."

"But I am yours! I was always yours!"

Morgan pressed his forehead to the door, jaw working at the boy's betrayal, then pushed off. "I want to believe that."

Jensen slumped against against the wall, shaking with silent sobs as Morgan's torch faded and he was left in the dark.

* * *

The battle was short. Soon the sky was black with vultures, his banner trampled in the mud, and Morgan knelt with Jared's sword pointed at his face.

"Do you yield?"

Morgan looked round at his men. He could not in good conscience sentence them to die. "What would you ransom for my body?"

The blade slid past his throat until Jared was up close and breathing on his mouth. He bared his teeth. "I believe you have a hostage."

* * *

Life was suspended down in the Ovens, but its' magic took the edge off of Jensen's despair. He stared at the floor, forgetting his name, his failures, why he should be angry. It was a mercy.

"Jensen?"

He looked up. A long, long pink ribbon hung from the grate, just long enough for him to reach if he extended his hand.

"I can't get to it."

"Yes you can. It will set you free."

Jensen tested the chains, and sure enough he found he had the strength to take hold of the ribbon, the one act of charity capable of cancelling out Morgan's magic, and lifted himself to a standing position.

"Now come to me."

Voices muttered outside his door, curious prisoners who recognized the stink of white magic. He shook off his chains as if they were rags and began to climb hand over hand.

The face in the grate began to take shape. "That's it, can you see me now?"

A greasy hand latched onto Jensen's leg, then another, then a whole host of the damned began fighting for Jensen until they swarmed about him. He kicked but not too hard, for fear he would tear the ribbon and be dropped to the stone floor below.

"Take my hand!"

More prisoners joined the melee and he heard a rip beside his ear. Climbing despite the snarling horde, he managed a few more feet and curled his fingers around the grate. It was locked.

"I can't get out!"

Jared levered his sword under the hinge as Jensen twisted his head around to look below, the prisoners steadily closing the gap. "Quickly now!"

Jared loosed the grate and thrust his arm in, snaking around Jensen's wrist right as the ribbon snapped and the prisoners vanished in a rotten tangle of limbs. One hard breath and they rolled in the grass with Jensen on top, gasping for air.

"How did you find me?"

"I have the magician, though I doubt he suffer captivity for long. I must hurry back before he gets an ideas," said Jared, cupping Jensen's cheek, "Oh my love I thought I had lost you."

"I remember now, it was the battle last year in these very woods..." he said, though details were unclear, "I must have been left for dead and discovered behind enemy lines."

"No matter," said Jared, lifting them to their feet, "I have a gift for you."

Jared drew a newly forged sword from his saddle, encrusted with jewels and ebony, and passed it to him. Jensen admired it and noted the hilt, where's a cameo of Jared's profile had been set. "I don't deserve this."

"You don't. But my general does. Now come, there are still many dangers ahead," he said, pulling him in for a kiss, "And I dare not seek them alone."


	2. Prisoner of Candyland

When he was sure Jensen was asleep, Jared dressed and listened outside his bed chamber. A castle is never entirely quiet during a siege. He hurried past sleepers, guards drooping against their spears, soldiers wrapped in horse blankets, and the few he spoke to were happy to see him. After six weeks of being shut indoors, they would have been happy to see anyone.

He felt a tug on his cloak.

"Please, your Grace," said a young boy, "There's nothing to eat."

Jared bent close, thick chocolate locks brushing the boy's cheeks. "Can you keep a secret?"

"Yes, your Grace."

"Then take up your sword and stay close, for I cannot guarantee your safety."

The boy shivered. The king was well formed, long-limbed with a slender waist and a swordsman's shoulders, moving with the silent ease of a thief. A formidable opponent, and not one to exaggerate danger.

They turned the corner to find a door with a stone mouth for a knocker. "So...hungry..." it murmured, and without breaking stride Jared tossed it a candy and the door swung open and closed behind them as softly as the lid on a jewelry box.

"Keep up," said Jared, passing a torch over the boy's head, "Your little legs can only carry you so far."

The boy ran his fingers over white taproots, pulsing eerily over rough-hewn walls that shone with gumdrops, and when he plucked one into his mouth it dissolved like sweet sand. No one scholar could agree on the history of the tunnels. Theories ranged from geological surveys to monstrous labyrinths to a safe path for the princess to walk her pet elephant. Jared had devised a new purpose altogether.

After a time, Jared looked round and smiled, that sad, ironic smile that made everyone want to listen to what he had to say. "Welcome," said Jared, spreading his arms, "To my dungeon."

They had emerged in a moonlit field far, far from the castle, rock candy mountains stretching to either side of an ocean of pale blue flowers that rippled in gentle waves though no wind stirred. Jared lifted one on his finger, and the boy watched it shake off dew until the air glittered with pearls of butterfly milk.

Tears sprang into his eyes. "But my lord, this is a wondrous place. What horrors could it possibly claim?"

Jared's cloak whipped about his legs in the warm summer wind, and he set the butterflower down. "Beyond the hill is a tree from the castle orchard. There is no other like it, for it blooms white and red and you may eat of it as much you like. Wait for me there."

"And what if you should not return?"

"More importantly, how will you know it's me?"

The boy understood. Magic took all forms. Even kings.

Jared continued. "Offer me fruit from the tree and you will know by my choice whether it is me or my doppelganger."

"But which is it, the red or the white?"

Jared thumbed the gold chain around his throat. "Have you been taught the mysteries?"

The boy blushed, and recalled a sweaty night sharing the bed with his sister's friend. "...it was only once..."

"Then you know that it is neither. For my love has had me, and I will taste of apple wine even unto my grave," he said, turning away, "I will never be hungry again."

The castle would wake in another hour. Stars faded in the east and sparrowmints circled over his head and vanished into the shadows. Jared walked down the sloping sea of flowers, and at the bottom of that enchanted shore he buried his sword in the ground and sat cross-legged and said a name.

A narrow strip of the valley behind him was reflected in the steel, and he thought of Jensen, the shape of his hands, the sound of his heart, the smell of the cherry apple tree he'd planted years ago when he'd been too poor to afford a wedding ring.

Just the other day, the king and his general had been reviewing terrain and how many cannon they had captured, when a spider crawled across the table. The horde of black-eyed denizens boiled outside the castle walls, patiently starving them, yet Jensen had scooped the creature into his hands, deposited it out a window, and finishing circling a spot on the map. Love had gentled him.

The reflection in his sword flexed outward, and if he didn't look too hard Jared could just make out a pair of glowing yellow eyes in the distance. Perhaps he was a mile away. Perhaps he was standing right behind him. Hard to know.

"Hello Morgan," said Jared, "I have a favor to ask of you."

(*)

Jensen laughed at some joke with his officers. His laughter echoed through the palace grounds, rolling over solemn portraits and twin rows of torches, and the boy followed it with Jared's letter crammed in his fist.

Jensen looked up from papers. "Yes?"

The boy removed his hat. He stared at his feet, as if there were a tightrope between him and the general and someone had taken away the net. "A message from his grace."

Jensen frowned at the letter. When had Jared left the castle? He skimmed it once and then again more slowly, his eyes narrowing.

"He also sent this," said the boy, holding up a package, "He said you would know what it meant."

"Leave it. When did you last see the king?"

"Just a few minutes ago, sir, he's gone forth to call his bannermen..."

Jensen cursed and ran to the window, right as Jared's horse shot out over the drawbridge with thirty cavalry behind him. Not much, but enough to lure the bulk of the opposing army into the open, most of whom were armed with wooden staffs and lacked both horses and armor, leaving the seasoned fighters at the foot of the castle. A clever move.

Rolling up his maps, Jensen looked the boy over. They all had that thin, chewed-up look. "Have you ever fought a soldier from the Ovens?"

"No, sir."

"Then keep your distance. You can barely lift that sword, if I were you I'd join the archers on the roof."

"But the battle could last until nightfall, what if we run out of light and I should hit one of our own?"

"Easy. The wolves from below are forever in heat, their mouths aflame with living fire, and leave a trail of smoke wherever they go," said Jensen, swiping the package on his way out, "Just follow your nose."

Jensen took a lesser-known route, removing his boots to walk barefoot past open doors, then down a damp staircase that dropped a degree colder with every step. Something went thump in the distance. He called out but no one answered.

Once he reached the dungeon, he opened the package. A red apple sat nestled in his hand, cut in half and re-bound in a pink ribbon with the insides hollowed recently if he had to guess. A key fashioned from cinnamon sticks lay within.

All of the rooms in the passage were open save one. Jensen watched the door tremble in its' frame, a high muffled voice whispering on the other side.

"...harder..."

Faster and faster came the noise, a clapping of bodies that sounded once a second, twice a second, and then a rattling that ended with a strangled sob as if the girl were dying. This wing was the oldest part of the castle, badly in need of repair with a sloping floor, and Jensen took a step back as a thick line of buttercream ran from under the door, snaking down the flagstones as if to touch him.

From the shadows he watched the scullery maid leave, flushed and wiping chocolate from the corners of her mouth, and it was only when she turned the corner that Jensen heard his voice.

"Please, come in, I was just sitting down to supper."

The prisoner smiled faintly. Morgan lay on a straw mattress with his wrists shackled over his head, miles of clean wet muscle barely concealed by a sheet the maid had tossed on for modesty. Candles flickered over a half-eaten plate of chorizo.

"How long have you been here?"

"Not long."

"Was this your idea, pushing the battle ahead of schedule?"

"No."

"So why?"

Morgan's eyes slid toward his meal. "Aren't you hungry?"

Jensen did not look at the silver dinner tray, a little pot of chocolate hazelnut sauce steaming beside cakes dipped in powdered sugar. His mouth watered. "We're all hungry."

"Exactly. You're out of time. Strike now."

"How?" Jensen said, looking at the inside of his hands, "The king has taken my best men, all that's left are servants and children. We'll be slaughtered if we leave the castle."

Morgan eyed the maps under Jensen's arm. "Who says they can't come to you?"

Jensen breathed out, fingering the hilt of his sword. "What's your plan?"

"Lay out the blueprint of the castle."

Jensen bent down, carefully unrolling the parchment over Morgan's lap, avoiding the shadow of his cock beneath the cotton sheet. Morgan jutted his chin at the side entrance. "There. That portculis can be lifted off its' hinges, but the passage will only allow men to walk in single file. See how it turns a sharp angle beneath the bell tower...there."

"Even if we could route the men into a choke point, we don't have enough soldiers to keep them at bay."

"Oh, you wouldn't need many. Perhaps five, perhaps four. If they're good enough," said Morgan, eyes glittering, "Perhaps only one."

Jensen licked his lip nervously and looked away. A stray bit of chocolate clung to Morgan's grizzled jawline, where the girl had missed. "I don't know if I could do that."

"You're out of practice

"No, I'm just afraid I'll..."

"End up dead?"

Jensen's eyes met his. "End up like you."

"Don't think about the big numbers. When I was a boy working the foundry, I would say to myself, 'Just one more hammerblow, and then I will stop to rest.' And then after that one I would say again, 'Just one more, before I rest'. And on and on, until my work was completed," he said, his voice drawing Jensen in, "That's all murder is."

Jensen shuddered, eyeing the chocolate smear on his face and wishing he could have one taste. Where the hell was Jared...?

Morgan watched Jensen's misgivings play over his face. "Bring me one, one head to rest my feet upon. You can do that. And then...you may have your reward."

"There's nothing you can give me."

"And what you've been given upstairs, you feel you've...earned that?"

Jensen grit his teeth. "Don't talk about him."

"He's not around to hear it. And based on all the clamour outside I'd wager he won't be around to hear anything for much longer."

Jensen grabbed his shoulders and slammed him against the stones, eyes flashing black. Morgan laughed. "You're wasting your time soldier. Go and stop this war."

"Don't order me,: he breathed, as his mouth closed over his, "You don't have that right."

(*)

Jared rolled his shoulders and swung through a row of footmen, the last one crumpling beneath his horse. It was a beautiful day. Red-breasted doves, winged dollops of whipped cream bursting with jam, flocked against a cloudless sky, and the summer rain had left fudge puddles on the hard-baked cookie flagstones. They would write songs about this day. He'd rather be anywhere but here.

A wounded rider sidled up to him, so weary he had to hold the pommel with both hands. Jared handed him a kerchief. "Wipe the blood off your face."

The knight took it and ducked his head. "Yes, your grace."

"Do we have any deserters?"

The knight smiled. "You tell me."

Jared smiled back. He had an unerring sense of each of his men's positions, whether out of the corner of his eye or a hundred feet behind him, and they in turn learned to know where he was at all times. The king moved, they moved with him like compass needles finding north.

"There's more at the bottom of the hill," said Jared, cleaning his sword on his trouser leg, "Make a V-formation and circle round so we may attack with the sun behind us."

"Can we expect reinforcements? The castle is sparsely guarded as is."

"Fear not," he said, sparing Jensen a thought, "I have left it in good hands."

He signaled and they charged down the hill in a tidal wave of horse and steel. Even the strongest denizens of the Ovens could not defend against the sheer weight of a broadsword moving forty miles an hour, and the river stood between them and the safety of the forest.

"Have at you, dogs!" he cried, horse rearing on its' hind legs as his enemies cowered before him.

Despite this show of bravado, he desperately wanted his friend at his side. Jensen embraced the panic and rode it all the way through the fight, a mean intelligence with a gallows humor that got him thru the nastier aspects of combat.

Morgan must have seen the same thing in Jensen the first time they met. Jared imagined them, creatures at their heels, Jensen wiping the sweat from his brow, shield pushed against his waist with a red wet smile that, later in the tent, became a knowing leer as he stepped out of his armor and climbed onto the old man, stretched tight around his cock, huffing Morgan's name between his teeth as the old man growled and bit his shoulder and melted inside of him.

All of these suspicions passed in the slivers of time between kills, as one watching a wild animal stalking the other side of a picket fence. It might be a dog, it might be a wolf, it all depends on what you've come in contact with before. You can only trust the fence will be enough.

"They're regrouping, your grace."

Jared shook his hair out of his eyes. "Push them into the water, either they'll lose their footing or the current will carry them away."

The knight nodded and Jared dispatched another howling raider, the body pitching face-down in the grass.

Fatigue set in, and with it guilt for using a loved one to further Jared's scheme. Jensen might fuck out of misdirected passion during the heat of battle, and this he could forgive. Morgan might claim him to settle a score, and this he could forgive.

But there was always the possibility that nothing would pass between the two men, that their mutual respect might elevate them past carnal hunger to the lofty ether of unrequited love, and this haunted Jared. You can't kill a dream of love. You can only wait for it to wither.

I hope he's dead. he thought. The thought came unbidden, a flash in the vertigo of melee, but the more men he cut down, the more he said it to himself, dead, dead, dead, and this lent him strength. Jared interrupts them in bed, dead, Jared returns to a corpse-strewn castle and Jensen transformed back into a monster, dead, Jared hangs Jensen's body from the gate with Morgan's head tied around his neck like a pendant, dead, until it became a litany of violence in his head.

Jealousy was sweet, and he tucked it behind his teeth like a candy sucked of all its' flavor.

"Your grace," said the knight, grabbing Jared's reins, "You're hurt."

Jared looked down. A knife stuck out of his side. He didn't even feel it.

"How...?" he began, and then the world went black around the edges and he fell headlong into the river.

(*)

Jensen sat beside Morgan and stared at the dinner tray in his lap, radiant with success. A bloody burlap sack sat in the corner of the dungeon. Morgan hung in the shackles and opened his mouth for another bite of food.

"He didn't even hear me coming," said Jensen, handing off another piece of cake, "He was fletching arrows when I slid down the wall on the end of a rope and..." He slapped his hands together in a cloud of powdered sugar.

Morgan chewed thoughtfully. "Were you followed?"

Jensen smiled, eager to brag. "Yes."

He lept off the bed with a spring in his heels and shook the burlap sack. It looked heavy.

"How many remain outside?"

"Nothing I couldn't handle," said Jensen, slinging the bloody sack over one shoulder like the saint of errant children, "Most have retreated to the river, so that leaves, oh, forty-five by my count."

"Forty-six."

Jensen blinked. "But I counted..."

"...the ones outside."

Jensen started to speak, but Morgan cut him off, not interested in the boy's consolations. "There's no place for me in peacetime."

"Everyone has a place."

"You're wrong."

"Why else would we do all this if not to make peacetime possible?" said Jensen, tossing the sack aside, "To wake up in a clean bed, labor in the fields, walk at night knowing you are safe?"

"No one is safe. Not so long as men such as I are allowed to live."

Jensen crouched and gathered the old man's face in his hands. "We have use for you yet. When this is over you will lend us your arm, that you may beat their swords into plowshares," he said, swiping a bloody thumb over Morgan's lower lip, "And from this garden of bones we may grow roses."

Morgan tongued the blood from his mouth, transfixed by Jensen's conviction. Never had he known a soldier to so relish danger, like a child ducking into a forbidden forest to see how long, and how far, they can make themselves go. His old imperial ambitions loomed before him.

"Take these chains off of me."

"Why?"

"I have a gift for you."

Jensen turned his head slowly, eyes following Morgan's as he dug in his pouch for the cinnamon key. It seemed far too delicate for the task. "We should wait the king returns, he will know how to decide your freedom."

"And you're privy to all the king's decisions?"

"No, I am privy to his heart."

"That's hardly power behind the throne."

"It is the root of the throne. Everyday grievances can flourish into cruelty if not kept in check, especially with power such as he wields, so it is my honor to strip him of such things so that his heart may bear fruit," he said, recalling a distant cherry apple tree, "Whatever his decision, I have already made my mark."

"Then you'd better hurry. He may not live to decide my fate."

Jensen dropped his eyes, twisting the key in his hand. Their foreheads leaned in together. "I wish you could fight alongside me."

Moran didn't have to reply. Their kiss was desperate, seering, soot and chocolate and molten marshmallow swirled as Jensen touched the side of his face with his fingertips, aching to go further. Then remembering himself Jensen stood up and went out the door and ran into the scullery maid, giving her an evil look that should have stuck six inches out the back of her head.

She closed the door and curtsied. "Did you not like your dinner?"

Morgan smiled at the girl, taking his time on the shadow of her cleavage. He could smell Jensen standing at the end of the corridor, well within earshot. "Oh no, it was excellent," he said, lips pulled back over two rows of perfectly square white teeth, "I saved some for you."

She glanced over her shoulder, listening for the other servants and the general holding his breath on the other side of the wall. Alone at last, she threw her arms around Morgan's neck and said his name, ripping away the sheet to reveal his beautiful mouth-filling cock. Jensen covered his ears and walked on.

Morgan made the mistake of assuming Jensen's bloodlust stemmed from shame, that he had fallen short as a soldier and a lover and needed to prove himself otherwise. No such thing. With Jared in peril he felt that no degree of violence was excessive in order to bring his king home and reconcile Morgan to the side of good.

He would deliver a thousand heads.

(*)

The knights rushed through the forest, horses kicking up a golden spray as they cut through the lemonade springs and onward under cover of darkness. A pair of crows circled the moon as if strung about a maypole. Jared looked on dully, lashed to his saddle, the knife still plugged into his side, and listened to the birds.

A knight stooped to fill his flagon and pressed it to Jared's lip. "Drink, your grace."

Jared switched his sword to his left hand and took the flagon. "I don't hear anything. Did we kill them all?"

"We've scattered them, but they're regrouping back at the castle."

"Then we should...we should..." he said, and his sword slipped from his fingers, sticking in the ground and shivering like a dowsing rod. The knights nodded and cut the ropes around his horse.

"I'm not dead." he croaked, as the men laid him out.

"You will be if you don't get some rest." said one, producing a small sewing kit from his saddle bag. A sturdy branch was hewn for the king to bite down on, and several men volunteered their own shirts to staunch the blood flow once the knife was withdrawn.

He fought to breathe. Blood spilled between the surgeon's fingers, and with it all Jared's animosity toward his enemies. He regretted not heeding Jensen's advice and working toward a more peaceful resolution. He tried whispering as such to the men, but he was looking up from the bottom of a well, farther and farther from their faces.

Breathe in.

(*)

Hours later, Jensen lay spread-eagled on the dungeon floor, hands shaking from the adrenaline. He tried lifting his head and failed. He felt as if he weighed a thousand pounds.

"They brought in reinforcements," he managed, turning to spit out a mouthful of blood, "I knocked them back for now, but..."

He covered his face with his hands. "I can't do this alone. Please, please, come with me."

Morgan's lip curled in a cruel sneer. "Get up."

Jensen ignored him.

"Get up. You're not a child, you're a man."

"No one can be a man in this place."

"Will crying ease your suffering?"

Jensen sniffed hard, wiping his face. "No."

"I thought as much. Now stand."

Jensen rolled to his feet, blood buzzing in his ears. It was faint, like a tuning fork or someone running a wet finger over the rum of a wineglass. It was the only sound in the room.

"Take off your clothes."

"...sir?"

Morgan's eyes snapped to black. "Take off. Your clothes."

Jensen stood hypnotized by the ferocity of his eyes, the corded muscles of his arms and his scent filling the room, and obeyed. He set aside his platemail to reveal his undershirt, torn and bloody, and was halfway to peeling it off when Morgan stopped him.

"No wait. Fetch the key."

Jensen cast about for it, not dwelling on the consequences of his actions. Morgan regarded his stupor with neither surprise nor interest, and Jensen in turn became convinced he had dreamt all this. He was not in his own body.

The key twisted in the lock, and Morgan removed the shackles and rubbed the welts on his wrists. His sessions with the maid had allowed him to draw on the Mysteries of love to store raw magic, and now his whole body thrummed with power in anticipation of this moment.

Jensen stood back. "You said you had a gift for me."

"I do," said Morgan, clutching Jensen's ragged shirt in his fists and tearing it down the middle like cheap paper, "For both of us."

And wrapping his hand around the back of Jensen's neck he kissed him and and very slowly pulled them down together. Candles cast their shadows on the other side of the dungeon. Bruises ran along Jensen's left arm where his shield had cushioned the blow, but he did not feel them now. He lay trembling on Morgan's belly, inhaling his scent with his boots pointed at the floor and fingers curled into the sheets.

He kicked off everything else until they were naked with only a scanty sheet to separate them from the waist down, the red tip of Morgan's cock peaking from the top. Without breaking the kiss, Morgan reached to his right and lifted a candle from it's stand.

"Spread for me."

Jensen opened his legs and watched as Morgan's thumb closed over the flame. Black eyes studied him, the elegant curve of his spine, buttery fondant that ended in a shapely ass with a pink rose secretly kept just for him in the center.

Morgan pressed his tongue to the back of his teeth. "What are you going to do for me?"

Two powerful hands rested on Jensen's ass, nails marking the flesh. "Kill."

"Louder."

"KILL."

"All of them?"

Jensen's jaw worked, cock leaking as it touched Morgan's. "Every last one, sir."

"That's right. And when you get back," he said, warm melted tip of the candle breaching Jensen's virgin ass, "I can't wait to see this look on your face."

Jensen's mouth fell open as the candle sank into him, widening him, Morgan's other arm locked tight around his waist.

"Don't let it get away from you," Morgan whispered, as their cocks slid together, "Focus."

Jensen bit his lower lip, struggling to hold back as all his hurts were forgotten and new strength flowed through him, candle easing in and out of him. His ardor primed the pump as it were, his lithe young body becoming a vehicle for magic and then reflecting it back tenfold until he felt he might burst like the seed pod of a flower.

"That's it..."

"I think I'm going to finish."

Morgan crushed the base of Jensen's cock in his fist, and the boy cried out. "Not today you won't."

The transfer complete, the last bit of magic faded from Morgan's cock like a wisp of smoke, and he yanked out the candle and sent it rolling across the floor. "Now on your back soldier."

Jensen did so, breathing heavily, every muscle tensed like a steel trap. He could have knocked down a door frame with his cock. Morgan rolled on top, knees bracketing Jensen's hips. Even kneeling he towered over Jensen, lips parted, eyes tight black slits watching him with a cold fascination.

"Go now young man. Kill for king and country. And when you sheath your sword in the enemy's breast," he said, cock pumping in his sweaty fist, "You will wear my favor."

Jensen's heart battered inside him, panting in sympathy as Morgan gripped his shoulder and milked himself with long thrusting strokes, hard belly undulating, and whispered "good boy" as he bent to kiss him and shot a hot rope of buttercream across Jensen's chest.

"I won't fail you this time." he whispered, kissing Morgan again and again in gratitude, and rushed out with his sword hilt held against his heart like a bunch of flowers, as if death were something to be wooed. "Will you wait for me?"

"I'll be right here."

With a last farewell, Jensen gathered up his things and bounded out of the room. Morgan counted to a hundred, until he was sure Jensen had reached the murder hole on the other side of the castle. Jared's blood tinged the air like a distant cookfire. It was now or never.

Once he was certain he was alone, he crept out the door, a splash of moonlight sharpening his features as he sucked in his first lungful of air as a free man, and ran for the forest.

(*)

The knights dry-washed their hands on stalks of rosemary to hide their scent, and hobbling the king's horse they leaned against the boulders each lost in thought and listened to thunderclouds gathering over the foothills. It smelled like rain.

One of the knights was just closing his eyes to sleep when he spied a chocolate egg on the ground where none had been a moment before. He took it and rolled it between thumb and forefinger, saying to himself, "When was the last time his grace had a boiled egg?"

He knelt down and touched Jared's face. "He's so cold, and there must be more nesting birds in these forests. I will fetch him dinner while the others keep watch."

Another knight noted him and said, "It's not safe to venture alone in these woods, for the wolves of the Ovens lay in wait to cut your throat. I will join you."

A third knight shivered suddenly despite the summer heat. The forest stretched behind him like a great mouth, and he thought what a comfort it would be to his king to build a fire. "It will only be a few minutes work to gather kindling."

And so it went that the camp emptied one by one, until each man found himself inexorably drawn to some noble errand, and when they tried retracing their steps they recognized neither the stars over their heads nor the sound of their own names when they tried calling to one another. Meanwhile Jared lay by the river, alone, rosemary needles floating along the current and out of sight back to the castle.

Asleep in his cloak, the king looked very young, blue butterflowers arranged in his hair like a living crown. His sword was never far, and the butterflowers sang to it in their high humming chorus.

Morgan thought about that sword a great deal. You could trap a man's soul in a mirror just as easily, but a sword would sit well over the mantelpiece, with an excellent view of the royal bed as the old man hooked his fingers into Jensen's hips and opened the ring of his virgin ass.

A pink fog rolled through columns and darkness and columns of moonlight like the folds of a paper fan, when twin plumes of smoke curled from black nostrils to spin clockwise toward the moon. Jared sighed and rolled over.

The stag was as tall as any horse with ten-point antlers of whorled red and white peppermint, black coat speckled gray with large eyes that reflected nothing. Grass withered in its' path. Two vultures hunched on a nearby branch, and when the stag regarded them they stared back with feline indifference and it turned back to Jared and no other creature stirred.

The butterflowers flew off all at once and Jared's eyes opened, closed, opened again. The stag was familiar to him, but he couldn't say why.

He wound his arm around its' powerfullly built neck and whispered, "You shouldn't be here. My men have not eaten in days. They will cut you down."

Something in the stag's expression softened. This was not the response it had expected.

"Are you hungry?" asked Jared, fumbling inside his cloak with his good arm, "I picked these just the other day."

The stag watched the top of Jared's head. One swift kick would crack his bones, but then Jared looked up and the moment passed.

"Here," he said, holding out an apple, "Taste it, you'll like it."

The cherry apple shone a dark red, ripe and leaking juice down the side of Jared's hand, and when the stag did not move to take it Jared bit off a piece and held that in his palm. The apple flesh gleamed white inside. As sweet as it smelled, it could not mask the earthy tang of Jensen's fingerprints from when he had last tended the tree.

Jared took a bite and swallowed. "See? It's not poisonous."

His shirt had come loose during the surgery, and a narrow window of warm skin peaked out when his cloak moved. The injury was grievous. One push and he would fall into the river where the long gentle hand of the current would pull him down forever, and Morgan could wear his face and rule the kingdom. But Jared smiled tenderly as no man had ever smiled at Morgan, and the stag pressed its' mouth into the king's palm and ate.

Suddenly, a pang shot through Jared's heart, and he started suddenly in the direction of the castle. Once his back was turned, the stag began to revert to its' true form. "Something has happened," said Jared, dropping the apple and reaching for his sword, "They must have gotten to Jensen."

There's a reason many magicians hand their names down over the generations. Morgan was not the first of his name nor would he be the last. Names held great power. So when he stretched out his hands preparing to crush Jared's neck, the mention of Jensen disrupted the spell and he lost focus. Every vision of Jared's death-the chase, the struggle, the light going out of his eyes-vanished as the young king turned around at Morgan's touch and dropped his sword.

"My love," he exclaimed, "How did you find us?"

A naked Jensen stood before him, or at least the idealized version of Jensen in Morgan's fantasy, though in the dark and half out of his mind with fear for his lover's safety Jared could be forgiven for overlooking this flaw. Smiling in relief, Jared's earlier misgivings evaporated and he enfolded him in a desperate embrace. Morgan was silent, horrified at his mistake and yet yielding easily to Jared's kiss. He was easy to love.

"Is it done?" asked Jared, breathing hard, "Is it truly over? Say it is over so we may go home."

Morgan tried pushing him away, but not very hard. He had to get back to the castle, if Jensen were in danger...

"Don't leave me!" Jared cried, clasping Morgan's outstretched arm, "Are you the ghost of my true love that you have traveled all this way in the guise of an enchanted creature and yet will not speak to me?"

The tang of blood sizzled in the air, Jensen's blood, and Morgan felt the eldritch thread connecting them begin to unravel. He pulled away again, but Jared held on and sank to his knees in supplication.

"Forgive me," he whispered, tears floating in his eyes, "I should never have tricked you into defending the castle, but we were running out of time and I had the people to think about."

He kissed Morgan's hand, tears sliding down his face. "The war is over. We can be married now. Everything I've fought for is yours, my crown, my land..." he looked up, tentative, "My children."

Morgan froze, his hand loose in Jared's grip.

Jared swallowed. "Our children."

A blue butterflower lit on his belly, softly, mindful of the dreamers within. Phantom sons stood behind Jared, each one another Morgan in miniature, strong, proud, a legacy he'd never dared entertain in his plans for conquest. The devil could not have made him a better offer.

The mountains flared with silent lightning. A restless wind tossled the hair on his head as Morgan edged toward the water with Jared in his arms. The river surged and sucked at their calves, and the king did not resist.

A pair of knights appeared on horseback. "Your grace?"

But the two men sank beneath the waves, the moonlit glittering on the surface as the water closed over their heads, and when the knights dove in after them and came up for air a minute later, they returned empty-handed.

(*)

TO BE CONTINUED


End file.
